Arizona weekly enterprise., 1887-07-30
Has Spark. BIundered4

H OeEe0E
 The recent order of the General Land Office issued to Registers and Receivers, requires the payment of fifty cents per acre in desert land entries at the time the filing is made, and the additional pay ment of two dollars per acre upon final proof, for lands within the forty mile limit of the forfeited railroad lands grant, ed by the government. This ruling is not made retroactive and affects only en- tries made subsequent to June 20th.
 All those desert lands in Pinal county along the line of the Florence canal come under the jurisdiction of this order, and the fact that entries have been made prior to June 20th, at the minimum price -S1. 20 per acre-works manifest in justice to those who come later. There has been no session of Congress in the interim and the law governing the en- tries is the same. If, therefore, those who filed upon desert lands within the forty mile limit prior to June goth, did not comply with the law in so doing, what right exists with the executive officer of the land office to exempt them from it's provisions and deny others the same privilegel
 Section 2357, U. s. Revised Statutes fixes the price of the public lands at SIPS per acre, provided, that the price to be paid for alternate reserved lands, along the line of railroads within the limits granted by any act of Congress shall be two dollars and fifty cents per acre.n
 The lands granted to the Southern Pacific railroad in Arizona have been re- stored to the public domain by act of Congress, and therefore there are now no alternate reserved lands" for all are alike subject to entry.
 But Chapter 227, Acts of 1879-SO, page 23S, repealed the double minimum price of public lands. It reads;
 Sec. 5. That the price of lands now subject to entry which were raised to two dollars and fifty cents per acre, and put in market prior to January, 1861, by reason of the grant of alternate sections for railroad purposes is hereby reduced to $1.2 per acre.
 How far this affects the lands alleged by the commissioner to be double min imum price is question not necessary to consider at this time for the desert land act itself sets at rest all question as to the price of such lands. Chapter 107, page 377, Acts of ls76-77, Desert Land Law] says:
 Y "And upon payment of twenty-five cents per acre to file declar- ation under oath'' and upon the payment to the receiver of the ad- ditional sum of one dollar per acre for a tract of land not exceeding GAO acres to any one person, patent for the same shall be issued to him."
 Here we have a positive and unmis- takable law governing the price of des- ert lands, without any conditions or ex- captions. No reference is made to "al- ternate reserved sections" as in pre-emp- tioR entries, and by specific language it covers that character of land termed des- ert lana, wherever found within the linn. its set down in the law. How Commis. toner Sparks can successfully emulate the historical Goliath and slay the living principle of an act of the Philistint Congress by his own jawbone is one o those eccentric enigmas that appeals tc one's sense of the ridiculous almost a. greatly as did his former attemp to suspend law of Congress upon tn, ground that there was probability O its early repeal.